Exhibit B: Iraq

On the heels of last week's five-point plan for Iraq put forth by the Bush Administration, recent events have cast doubt on its efficacy. First of all, this notion that on June 30 we will- presto!- grant full sovereignty to Iraq is hopelessly misguided. Today's news that the US and UN are trying to block the Governing Council's choice for the largely symbolic post of President makes that clear. We're so paranoid about losing our grip on this puppet government we're creating that we're trying to block a symbolic post. Actually, I think it's that we're absolutely petrified of the IGC choice, Ghazi Yamar, because he's a tribal and religious leader, and God forbid we put a religious face on this government (it's OK on our own soil, I guess, but not in Iraq). But what's more troubling is that the two alternatives for this position, Yawar and Adnan Pachachi (US and UN choice), are both IGC members. The Governing Council, known to everyday Iraqis by the sobriquet "The Governed Council," was supposed to have no impact on the interim sovereign government. This was one of UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's first priorities, to find nonpartisan "technocrats" to lead the country into the election process. This is why Ahmad Chalabi was so angry, so much so that he decided (allegedly) to go to Iran with secrets about US troop movements and the like.

The Governing Council thought they would be cut out of the power sharing, and, you know, they like power. So, learning from the US, they pre-emptively struck, coalescing their support for Prime Minister around Iyad Allawi, a former Baathist Party member. Now, the US was likely pleased with the selection of a Prime Minister with ties to British intelligence and the CIA. In fact, there is evidence that suggests that once Allawi's name was leaked, the US shoved his ascension down Brahimi's throat. But once bolstered, it appears this assertiveness has continued, and almost all of Brahimi's other choices to lead will come from the Governing Council, which has been dismissed by most Iraqis as a mouthpiece for the US. At the same time, Council members are using nationalist rhetoric to distance themselves from the US. When asked about the impasse over the choice for President, Mahmoud Othman, a Kurd on the 22-member Council, told Reuters: "They should let the Iraqis decide for themselves. This is an Iraqi affair." Just what the Bushies don't want to hear: an expression of sovereignty.

There were a great series of articles in The Nation where a series of progressives tried to articulate an exit strategy for Iraq. Most of them did what they could with an impossible problem, but I thought the most honest assessment was from John Brady Kiesling, a career diplomat who resigned from the foreign service in protest just before the Iraq War. I quote:

In the end a fractured Iraq can be held together only by a man wrapped, like George Washington or Ho Chi Minh, in the legitimacy that derives from successful armed struggle. We should note the ease with which a scruffy young cleric united Sunnis and Shiites against the US presence. A victorious Secretary Rumsfeld could not impose Ahmad Chalabi. However, a retreating US military can designate Iraq's liberator. We must select the competent Iraqi patriot to whom we yield ground while bleeding his competitors. There will be casualties and disorder, no matter how brilliantly we orchestrate our withdrawal. But the overwhelming majority of Iraqis will rally around any man who claims to drive us out, and elections would validate his relatively bloodless victory.

Not only do I think this is true, I think those grabbing for power in Iraq know this, and they're doing everything they can to resist the American enemy in order to get proper backing from the people. That's at work on the Governing Council, that's what Chalabi is trying to do, that's what Moqtada al-Sadr has in mind. In other words, it's in every Iraqi would-be leader's best interest to resist the US at every opportunity.

Billmon's recent claim that "success is not an option" looks more and more correct every day. In 30 days we will have a government in Iraq with no real power over security, that is at once cowtowing to and rebelling against the occupying forces of the American Whoopsie Empire. Basically, once the pieces are picked up from this debacle, whoever shuts the door at the border and yells "And stay out!" will become the new leader. And we can't just INSTALL that person.